For three years, the 32-year-old Patrick Fronda had toyed with the idea of joining the 48 Hour Film Project. But it was only last year that the Filipino multimedia engineer and Murdoch University Dubai instructor found time to participate in the annual event staged in different cities around the world.
The goal, according to Fronda, was simply to have the opportunity to compete with some of the country’s aspiring filmmakers. His expectations were so low that he showed up on the day of the awards in casual clothes.
By the end of the evening, Fronda’s seven-minute film, Pump It, had won five awards: Best Use of Character, Best Writing, Best Directing, Audience Award and Best Film. By topping the Best Film category, Pump It clinched the honour to represent the UAE in Filmapalooza 2014, which takes place from Thursday to Monday in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Shoot and go
Launched in 2001 by the filmmaker Mark Ruppert, the 48 Hour Film Project challenges participants to create and finish a short film in just two days, based on an assigned genre, main character, a prop and a dialogue line. Representatives visit different cities around the globe to bring the unusual concept to interested filmmakers. The winners are then pitted against each other at Filmapalooza, with the champion earning the right to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Making the best of it
The competition encourages resourcefulness on the part of the participants. Fronda made the most of what he had: with no crew in tow, he enlisted the help of his good friend and university colleague Wilbert Sayson to assist him in piecing the film together.
“It was already three in the morning when my concept for the film was finished. But I still didn’t have a setting and an actor to portray the lead role of a referee,” he recalls.
Fronda was determined to make the story hit closer to home: “I wanted to make it very Filipino.
“We went to Satwa, because it looks like Manila in some way. It is also very timely that the character assigned to me is a referee; that gave me an idea to set my story on a basketball court and as we all know Filipinos are naturally fond of the game.”
Fronda was given permission to shoot a league’s basketball game, with the organisers allowing the film’s referee protagonist to join the players on the court to call the shots.
“We were allotted 10 minutes to film the sequences that I needed,” he says.
Those few minutes would be enough to jump-start the movie’s plot of a referee who encountered an unusual accident while officiating a basketball game. What followed was a series of hilarious scenes that both delighted and puzzled the audience and contest judges.
Filipino humour
Fronda kept it simple, using only one character throughout the film and was cautious not to cram unnecessary elements into the film.
A fan of Philippine cinema, Fronda drew inspiration from the brand of comedy popularised by Filipino comic icons such as Dolphy and Chiquito. Fronda himself admits that the humour that he long admired from the late comedians may be viewed as outdated today.
“But I am really a fan and I would love to show that in my film,” he says. “I know how to make Filipinos laugh because I know our kind of humour. So the challenge was to make people laugh regardless of nationality, and the majority of the viewers were foreigners. So imagine my surprise when I saw and heard them laughing.
“I guess I made the right call.”
• For more information on the 48 Hour Film Project, visit www.48hourfilm.com
artslife@thenational.ae
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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Sustainable Development Goals
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Our legal advisor
Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation.
Education: Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2005.
